Blogging for the Gray Wolf

Bad news from Yellowstone National Park. Gray wolves are declining. Mange, parvovirus and or canine distemperwere partly responsible but the misguided Montana hunt did it’s part to reduce their numbers. If you remember Montana opened it’s hunt in the backcountry, right outside the borders of Yellowstone. The famed Cottonwood pack was decimated, specificallyalpha female 527F, her mate and daughter. It was like shooting fish in a barrel since those wolves certainly were not expecting to be shot. They had lived their whole lives unmolested in the park and routinely crossed over Yellowstone boundaries, since they can’t read signs.

“While parvovirus and mange continue to reduce the population, part of this year’s decline can be traced to the fact that wolves lost protection in the Northern Rockies under the Endangered Species Act in 2008. Wolves, like all wildlife, are protected inside the park, but when they roam beyond the borders, they fall into the state’s wildlife management practices. Idaho and Montana, which border Yellowstone, permitted hunting of wolves this fall. Idaho recently extended its hunt until March.”

Anti wolf detractors constantly talk about wolves reproducing themselves each year to make up for the fallen. Wolves on the contrary are not like coyotes, they don’t tolerate rapid change well, especially when there are wolf hunts, Wildlife Services War on Wolves, mange, parvovirus and wolf territorial disputes all coming together at once, it seems wolves are mortal after all.

“The wolves have it hard enough inside the park,” says Rolf Peterson, a wildlife biologist at Michigan Technological University. “The Yellowstone wolves should be treated like national treasures and protected.”

So the once robust wolf population in Yellowstone is down to 116 wolves from the high of 174 wolves in 2003.

“The gray wolf population is declining, says Doug Smith, the coordinator of the reintroduction efforts and leader of the Yellowstone Wolf Project that studies and manages the wolves. Wolves are killing each other at a higher frequency to compete for elk, their primary food source, which is less abundant now, he says.

“The good times are over,” Smith says. His annual census of the park’s wolf population is expected to be the lowest in 10 years, he said. Smith is still gathering data but says the number of gray wolves in the park will be 116, a 33% drop from 2003, when the population was at an all-time high of 174.”

Being a wolf in Yellowstone and throughout the Northern Rockies in general, is as hard as it’s ever been since their reintroduction. Stopping the wolf hunts and the assault by Wildlife Serviceswill go a long way to help them recover. I’m hoping Judge Molloy agrees.

Learning that Yellowstone wolves are sick and in decline makes me so sad, I feel sick to my stomach, especially after learning that Echo was killed in the Grand Canyon. We are loosing our beautiful, magnificent wolves. Will the next generation have the privilege of seeing wolves and other wildlife ALIVE and Healthy? Not if torture, trapping and killing are permitted to continue. If we allow these hunts and “kill-fests” to continue, we will be loosing what is best about nature, and the wolves who make nature the best it can be. Please help stop this path to extinction; nothing can ever reverse that course. STAND UP FOR WOLVES, COYOTES, BEAR, and all the wildlife we have been remiss in protecting. We need to educate everyone, everywhere, about how all wildlife enhances the world, and our lives, and how we must allow wildlife to share the world we live in – only then will we be worthy of their presence and contribution to humanity. Please spread the good word!

This blog is dedicated to the memory of Wolf 253, the beloved Yellowstone Druid wolf named Limpy, who was shot and killed in March 08, on the very day ESA protections were lifted for the gray wolf, by the then Bush Administration.